Science and technology

Video games

Breathe! Score! Breathe!

"BEJEWELED" devours its victims. Babbage firmly believes the game was designed in 2000 by alien conquerors to sap humanity's will, softening us up for invasion. More recently, these exobiological entities created "Plants vs Zombies". But the latest release of "Bejeweled" adds a twist: it wants you to relax. Perhaps we're more tender that way.

"Bejeweled" has a few simple rules. A screen of jewels appears in a matrix. Swap any two adjacent jewels left and right or top and bottom to form matched sets of three or more gems. The jewels disappear and those above slide down, a score increments, and more jewels are added at the top. Bonus points arise from matching four or five gems at a time, or creating sequential cascades of matches that fall into place as one set of icons is removed.

As with most puzzle games, a rhythm arises out of repetitive play, regardless of the tedium of the action involved. That is true of any engrossing game. Hours pass in a fugue state, whether you are shifting gems or firing a weapon from a first-person perspective. Games rewire your brain into a problem-solving system within the constraints of the created environment.

The latest release, "Bejeweled 3" for Mac OS X and Windows, offers a collision between two worlds, however. This third version adds more basic game modes, with puzzles to unlock and additional ways to play. The oddest new features is Zen Mode.

In Zen Mode, you turn on and set a variety of parameters, such as a choice of mantra, an in/out shaded pattern to which to match one's breath, ambient noise, and so forth. Ostensibly, having one or more signals integrated with the program, but external to game play (which remains the same) should let us tune in better to our physiological and spiritual natures. A few writing and other programs include such features or offer them as background tools.

Last year, this Babbage described software designed to keep you from using the internet, other programs on your computer, or social networking sites and applications (see "Stay on target," June 10th, 2010.) The point of such software was to allow one to focus while writing or carry out other creative tasks requiring attention.

I discussed attention and technology with Linda Stone, an outspoken advocate of mindfulness while using technology, and the coiner of "e-mail apnea," a term based on her examinations of people literally holding their breath while engaged in digital correspondence. Ms Stone was then extolling a biofeedback system that would place a slowly blinking indicator on a computer screen to trigger a user to synchronise breathing—and to remember to breathe at all.

Ms Stone is interested in onscreen and physical tools that can be used by those in front of a device that reminds them of their physical being. These tools typically involve a secondary external element in which part of one's consciousness must be lightly engaged.

There are elements of this in Zen Mode, which Ms Stone had not yet seen as of a few weeks ago. PopCap, the game's maker, has taken some points quite seriously without changing the game's behaviour. "Bejeweled 3" still produces sound effects, which can be disabled or muted through a separate preference from the Zen Mode settings. It also shows burning gems (indicating a trigger), explosions for matches of four or more, a voice saying "Awesome!" and "Excellent!" (which can also be turned down or off), and a crazy tunneling nightmare as you advance to the next level.

Even playing in a slow and deliberate manner with just the breathing regulator enabled, I felt torn between two separate impulses: one to play fast and well, and the other to disassociate from the game entirely. The cognitive dissonance could be part of the action. It's commendable that PopCap gave consideration to what would more accurately be called a "conscious gaming" mode. There's no withdrawal from the activity of the game, only a split focus between the intensity of the game and separate cues.

Will such options catch on in other games? While slaughtering the enemy, will a voice lightly remind you to consider world peace and to lay off the gateau? In the middle of a pinball round, do seagulls squawk to remind us of the salt water in our blood? Or, while playing the future "Bejeweled 4" (the "To Serve Man" edition), are we invited to rub meat tenderiser on our bodies as part of the relaxation exercise, and await the mothership's arrival?

Readers' comments

As the designer of Bejeweled I can offer a few notes. It was actually invented in 2000 rather than 2001, and not as an alien brainwashing tool (well, as far as we know). The Zen mode in Bejeweled 3 arose as a direct result of feedback from players of earlier versions, who enjoyed the game but were put off when they eventually, inevitably, lost: they were not interested in it as a "game" per se, to be won or lost, but as a relaxation/meditation exercise. This seemed strange to us initially, but we followed through with features designed to appeal to this kind of user.

It's certainly true that Bejeweled has something of a split personality in terms of its appeal and usage. Yes, some players (especially of timed versions like Blitz on Facebook) want to go as fast as they can and score as much as they can, and that definitely is in opposition to an untimed, unloseable mode. But the players who want to zone out in a pattern-matching trance don't care for timers and win/lose scenarios. Are there people who enjoy both types of activity? Probably, in the same way that you can like both downhill skiing and yoga: not simultaneously. But yes, because they are not physically exclusive activities in a video game, for some players Zen mode could be a schizoid experience akin to trying to do Downward Dog while shredding moguls.

Bejeweled is certainly not a biofeedback tool first and foremost, so our implementation of these systems is pretty light. The advantage is that we can get a lot more people to try them, and "patient compliance" is high as the activity is enjoyable, compared to many such medical programs.

In fact, our minds can only focus on one thing at a time; serious meditation involves "one-pointedness," complete focus on the object of meditation. Most of the time we flick back and forth between many things, only partially focused on the task at hand while skipping to other things. E.g., if you are attending to a meditation object while thoughts arise in the mind apparently simultaneously, you are in fact switching from one to the other and back again so rapidly that you don't notice. Often this is the mind's way of resisting changes in habit patterns which come about from some meditations. Can't comment on "Bejeweled," maybe I'll give it a look.

@Adhominem: I was reminded via Twitter that I was remiss in not mentioning Wil Wheaton (@wilw) and Star Trek: The Next Generation because of the October 1991 episode, "The Game." Mr Wheaton's character, returning from vacation, finds the crew obsessed with a game, which { spoiler alert } turns out to be designed by aliens to take over minds.

Actually, in some first-person shooters (I can't remember which at the moment), when health has been reduced to critical, sounds of a thumping heart beat or heavy breathing are emitted. Drives me nuts.

This is less on-topic, but I've always thought that addictive computer games like Bejeweled are the definitive counterexamples to Shirky's concept of beneficial widespread cognitive surplus. Beating your personal best is arguably more fulfilling than publishing to a blog of minimal if not questionable readership.

It's an odd coincidence, but I actually wrote a short story a decade or so ago about aliens creating an addictive board game, whose rules encourage surrender and assimilation, to pave the way for an invasion. Actual tenderization of the human victims (a la Kobe beef) via auto-relaxation techniques would be a bonus. Of course, I categorically deny any such allegations regarding Bejeweled as baseless and inflammatory.